Death Watch
by poetrygrrl39
Summary: Set several months after my previous BX story, Nightmares. I suggest reading Dust to Dust and Nightmares before reading this one.
1. Chapter 1

Death Watch

1

Xander sat in the dimly lit waiting room twisting his hands together. He had already refused offers of coffee, tea and "spiced warm blood." He looked down at his hands as they washed over each other. It was a new habit, and he hated it.

He stood up and jammed his hands in the pockets of his suit coat.

"Xander?"

He turned slowly. Behind him, standing in the door of the office, was Angel.

"Come on in," the vampire said. He moved out of the doorway to allow Xander entrance, then closed the door firmly behind them.

"I'm surprised to see you here." Angel settled himself behind the desk. Xander sat down in a chair. "You don't look very good."

Xander knew that was true. He looked out the windows at nighttime Los Angeles and saw his reflection. Dark circles under his eyes, hair a mess. His suit was wrinkled. He was almost gaunt. Better than fat as he had gotten under stress before almost marrying Anya, he supposed.

"I need your help, Angel," he said finally, looking away from the glass.

Angel's face crinkled in amusement. "That's something I never thought I'd hear you say."

"Yeah."

"Well, tell me what it is. We'll see if I will help you."

Xander studied Angel for a few moments. This was what he had been dreading. What had kept him pacing on the sidewalk outside the building for almost 20 minutes before he worked up the nerve to come in.

"Want a drink?" Angel asked suddenly.

"Harmony tried to give me coffee…"

"No, a real drink." Angel pulled a bottle of whiskey from somewhere in his desk and poured a couple of glasses full. He handed one to Xander. "This looks like a whiskey conversation."

Xander knocked back the drink, ignoring Angel's raised eyebrows as the vampire sipped at his.

"Buffy's pregnant."

Angel's knuckles went white around the crystal, and Xander hoped the glass wouldn't shatter.

"Congratulations," the vampire managed. He sat the glass down very carefully on his desk and spun his chair away from Xander. "So what do you want from me?"

"I need you to help me," Xander told the chair back. "Buffy can't keep slaying. She's been in the hospital twice this year, the first time was when we found out about the baby. The second time, she almost lost the baby. Buffy's still strong, but the baby….the baby can't take Buffy fighting all the time."

Angel rotated back around, looking at Xander curiously.

"So, what, you want me to come back to Sunnydale? Or to send some help to relieve her?"

"Something like that." Xander took a deep breath. "I want you to kill Faith."


	2. Chapter 2

2

Angel was staring at him.

"What?"

"If Faith dies, a new Slayer will be called," Xander blurted out. "She doesn't have to stay dead. Remember Kendra was called when Buffy was dead for only a few minutes."

"You've gone around the bend, Xander. I can't do that."

"Angel, think about it," Xander pushed forward in his seat, leaning toward the vampire. "What other answer is there? Let Buffy fight until she or the baby dies? Leave her alone in this? You know about Willow and Tara. They went off to Africa for research and now no one can find them. Giles is, well…Giles is Giles. But he's getting older. I try to help, but…I'm just human. No special powers. Just Xander." His voice was bitter.

"We just need Faith to die for a few minutes. Then the new Slayer gets called, we get Giles to get her to Sunnydale, and Buffy….Buffy gets to retire and raise our child."

Angel's face had gone from shocked to curious to speculative.

"How much of this is about Buffy? And how much of it is about you?" he asked.

Xander rocketed out of his seat toward the vampire, but Angel anticipated him and was on his feet as well. "Sit down, Xander," he growled, vamp faced. "Don't make me send you back to Buffy in a box.

"You have the gall to come here, and ask me for help because Buffy is bearing YOUR child?"

Xander sank back into his chair. He put a hand over his face, the hand that had been practically ripped off the last time Angel had seen him a year before. Scars crisscrossed the skin.

"Angel, I don't know what else to do. I don't know who else to ask," Xander said. "I've thought about this. For the last three months, since we knew about the baby. She deserves a normal life. The baby deserves a normal life.

"I've thought and I've debated with Giles. We even talked about rituals to strip her Slayer abilities from her permanently, so she wouldn't be a Slayer anymore." He ignored Angel's intake of breath. "But that would hurt her, could hurt the baby, would leave the world unprotected. Faith can't be trusted to come back and do the right thing even if we get her out of prison. I can't think of anything else."

"Does Giles know you're suggesting this?"

"Neither Giles nor Buffy even know I'm here."

"Why are you here?"

Xander looked up. Angel's face had smoothed, the vampire visage gone. "We don't like each other, Angel. We never have. But we both love Buffy. And right now, you're the only one who can help me."

He turned his head away from the flash of pity on the vampire's face.

"Xander, I don't know if I can help you. I don't know that I can kill Faith, even for a short time," Angel said. "But, for Buffy's sake, I'll see if I can come up with something."


	3. Chapter 3

3

Two weeks later, Xander was lying in bed next to Buffy when the phone rang. The exhausted mother-to-be had crashed into bed after a short patrol and fallen asleep with her clothes still on. Xander was awake, staring at the ceiling.

He answered the phone.

"It's done," said Angel's voice.

"What?"

"Faith is dead." The voice was filled with pain. Xander sat up.

"What do you mean, dead? I thought you said…"

"We researched and called in favors and tried everything. You were right, this was the only way. Problem is the second part didn't work. She didn't come back."

"Oh my God," Xander breathed.

"God had nothing to do with it, Xander. You did, and I did. I took her life. Another human life. So you got your wish. A new Slayer should already be Chosen." The phone went dead.

Xander sat with the phone in his hand, listening to the silence that proceeded the dial tone.

"Who was that, honey?" Buffy asked sleepily.

Xander hung up the phone carefully, tears rolling down his face. "No one, sweetheart. Wrong number. Go back to sleep."

He laid in the dark next to her until he could stand it no longer. He retreated downstairs to the kitchen, where he sat and sobbed. Smart idea, Harris. Really smart. Never considered that she might stay dead. He looked at his hands. There was no blood on them. But there should have been.

Maybe it was Angel's fault. He didn't say HOW he had killed her. Maybe he screwed it up himself.

Did it matter? He had sent the vampire, like a hired assassin. He carried the blame for Faith's murder.


	4. Chapter 4

4

Giles and Xander agreed not to tell Buffy about Faith until they were sure that the new Slayer was coming to Sunnydale. Giles seemed to have bought the story from Los Angeles that Faith had died in a prison yard fight.

Xander felt as if he hadn't slept since the night Angel called. He was useless at work, giving directions that countermanded his previous statements, walking around in a daze. He had wandered around the site with no hard hat on until one of his men crammed it onto his head, pointing to the warning sign Xander himself had put up.

His mind kept going in circles. How could he have done this? He had taken an innocent life. But he hadn't done it, Angel had. And she wasn't supposed to STAY dead. So did that make it better?

After senior year of high school, he had never been a big fan of Faith's. But he didn't want her dead. Not this way.

Buffy seemed unaware of his exhaustion. Hell with exhaustion, he thought. His depression. She was in school, patrolling, decorating the baby's room, worrying about Willow and Tara, training with Giles. For once he was glad of her distraction.

It was several nights after the phone call from Angel that Giles arrived on their doorstep while Buffy was on patrol. Xander opened the door and found himself pinned to the floor with Giles' arm pressed against his throat.

"What the bloody Hell did you do?" the Watcher demanded. His eyes were flashing. "How could you do it? Have you taken leave of what few senses you ever had?"

Xander was tired. He was so tired he didn't even struggle against the Watcher's arm. He closed his eyes and lay there as Giles shouted at him.

"Giles, get off him!" he heard Buffy shriek. The weight lifted off him. He opened his eyes to see Giles careen into the doorframe and land on his ass. Buffy leaned down to help Xander up, glaring at her Watcher over her shoulder.

Giles picked himself up, adjusting his glasses.

"What the Hell is going on here?" Buffy demanded.

Xander hadn't moved from the floor, hadn't responded to Buffy's outstretched hand. She stared at him, then straightened up and looked at Giles.

Giles was watching Xander, apparently astonished as tears slowly began to leak down the younger man's face.

"Faith is dead, Buffy," Xander said from the floor. "She's dead because I asked Angel to kill her."

Buffy spun back to him. The look of horror on her face was more than he could stand, and he closed his eyes again.

"Giles?" he heard Buffy say softly.

"It's true, Buffy. I just heard the truth from Wesley."

Buffy began to sob, and Xander heard the sound turn muffled as her Watcher put his arms around her. Xander opened his eyes to look into Giles' and the Watcher slowly shook his head, patting Buffy on the back as she cried into his chest.


	5. Chapter 5

5

Xander was packing. How had he accumulated so much stuff in only 18 months of marriage? he wondered. He would have to get a storage locker or something.

He could hear Dawn crying in her room next door. She had come home to find Buffy screaming at Xander while Xander sat mutely on the couch. Giles stood in the back of the room watching.

"Buffy, you have to calm down. For the baby's sake, if nothing else," Giles finally told her. It was his mention of the baby that had finally given Xander his voice.

"I just wanted to protect you both," Xander said. Buffy and Giles both looked at him in surprise. He had been silent for so long while they both railed at him. "It wasn't supposed to work this way. Faith was only supposed to be dead long enough for another Slayer to be called. So the new Slayer could come here and you and the baby would be safe. And Faith would be alive again."

That was when Buffy had shrieked at him to leave, and Dawn had run up to her room in tears.

Xander wasn't sure what Dawn was most upset about: Faith's death and Xander's involvement in it, or him leaving. He wasn't sure he wanted to know.

There was a knock at the door.

"Come in," he said automatically. He didn't look up from the box in which he was folding his clothes.

"You must have known she would find out sometime," Giles said from the doorway. Xander looked at him, a shirt in his hands.

"I didn't plan this, Giles," he said. "Or this isn't the way the plan was supposed to go, at least."

"How long have you known?"

"About Faith? Since the night before I told you. Everything was true: Angel called with the news, Buffy didn't know. Everything was true except for how Faith died."

"And that you asked for her to die."

"And that, yeah."

Xander returned to his folding. "Where's Buffy?" he asked the Watcher.

"In the kitchen. Eating damn near everything in sight."

Xander chuckled. "Yeah, she'll be doing more of that…" he stopped. "You'll have to keep an eye on her for me." He looked the Watcher in the eye, voice choked. "I did it because I love her so much, Giles. I thought I could save her."

"By sacrificing someone else?" Giles asked softly.

"This wasn't how it was supposed to work. You remember when the Master drowned Buffy?" Giles expression of pain said he did.

"Kendra was called during those few brief minutes she was dead. Then Faith was called when Drusilla killed Kendra. No new Slayer was called when Buffy died fighting Glory." Xander sighed. "I thought that Faith could die temporarily, just for a few minutes. Then Angel or whoever was with him could bring her back to life with CPR or whatever. We'd have a new Slayer to take over from Buffy. No harm, no foul."

"I'd say this was a pretty big foul," Buffy said from behind Giles. Her eyes and nose were red, but her face was calm.

Giles nodded to his Slayer and her husband and backed out, shutting the door behind him.

"I'll be gone soon, Buffy," Xander said. They could hear the rumble of Giles' voice through the wall, trying to console Dawn.

"If you had known that Faith wouldn't come back; that she would die forever, would you still have done what you did?" Buffy asked him. Her voice was raspy after her screaming fit.

Xander wanted to say 'no.' He knew that that was the word Buffy wanted to hear. But he couldn't.

"Yes. To save you and the baby, yes, I would have knowingly sacrificed Faith."

Her eyes closed.

"I tried to kill her to save Angel. I went with the intention of killing her."

Xander felt his heart leap, but he kept his voice under control. "I know."

"It wasn't right, and this wasn't right either," Buffy said. She looked into his eyes.

"I know."

"I guess we both have to accept things about each other that we'd rather not," Buffy said.

"Well, you do leave a lot of wet towels lying around," Xander said. Buffy gave him a half-smile.

"You actually asked Angel for help?" she said.

"Yeah. It wasn't a lot of fun. He threatened to send me home to you in a box."

"So he won't be Uncle Angel, then?"

She stepped closer to him and he put his arms around her, feeling the growing bump of her stomach against him.

"Who can say?"

"Giles told me a couple of days ago the new Slayer and her Watcher should be here within the week."

"And?"

"And I am taking a role in training her and will officially be off Chosen One duties as soon as Giles judges her ready."

Xander sighed.

"I'm thinking if the baby is a boy, we should name him Angel."

"And for a girl?" Xander asked, even though he knew.

"Faith. Her name will be Faith."

FIN


End file.
